Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1076: Chapter 1075: Unrecorded History

The garden suddenly quieted down.

Now Gawain understood why Queen Belsetia dismissed unrelated persons.

”You seem surprised,” The Silver Empress looked at Gawain sitting opposite her. ”It appears this isn’t the answer you expected.”

”No, this answer is actually somewhat good news in a certain sense—but I am indeed surprised,” Gawain exhaled softly, contemplating the implications behind Belsetia’s answer as he calmed his thoughts, ”Could you tell me in detail? The specifics of those cults’ activities, what kind of gods did they communicate with, what phenomena did they cause?”

”Of course,” Belsetia showed a slight smile, then seemed to fall into distant memories, pondering as she spoke slowly in a low voice, ”It all began with the White Starfall... As you know, during the White Starfall, Druids lost the God they had worshipped for generations. The original church groups gradually transformed into various academic institutions and Transcendent meetings. In history books, this process of transformation is simply summarized as a ’difficult transition’—but in reality, the struggle elves went through to accept this fact was far more challenging than the light words often described.

”Short-lived races like humans should find it hard to understand all this—Uncle Gawain, I’m just speaking the truth, because for humans, no matter how painful or difficult, they can forget and adapt over time, sometimes in one or two generations, sometimes not even in one. But for elves, our lives span two to three thousand years or even more, so even now, there are Druids still alive from the time of the White Starfall. Long lifespans allow us to remember those hardships for a long time, and for some devout servants... even as centuries pass, they cannot accept the fact of the God’s demise.

”Some stubborn Druidic sects were formed under such circumstances—the world often believes that the Druids of the Church of the Holy Spirit were the staunchest ’original faithists,’ but in fact, those Druidic sects unrecognized by history were. They were mostly the powerful priests and monk groups from the ’divine era,’ whose belief in gods had become their basic mode of thinking and life’s meaning. After the White Starfall, the Church of the Primeval Nature God fell into chaos, facing an inevitable major split. This group of extremely devoted people, to protect sacred heritage, took away many sacred texts and discreetly hid deep in the forests. Over the following centuries, they formed several major mystic sect groups.”

At this point, Gawain couldn’t help but interject: ”What was the Elven Royal Court doing at that time?”

”Dealing with our own chaos,” Belsetia said, ”You probably can’t imagine the deep impact of the Nature God belief on Elven Society over three thousand years ago—that was a quagmire deeper than the human gods. Therefore, when it suddenly disappeared, the chaos it triggered immediately consumed all the energy of the Elven Royal Court, while the Druidic sects took root in almost unmanaged deep forests and began... trying to restore their former glory using various methods.

”Despite many Druids seeing the vision of the White Starfall and many speculating it meant the ’death’ of the Nature God, there remained steadfast believers who thought the God had merely temporarily ceased communication with mortals, believing this was some sort of divine test or even a new ’divine revelation.’ They used various reasons to explain the desperate state, and driven by these reasons, those mystic sect groups constantly explored new prayer rituals, constructed new belief systems, and even modified old church classics to interpret the current situation.

”These activities persisted for several centuries—in the first few hundred years, they were just minor activities, even too low-profile to arouse the Court’s vigilance. We only regarded them as hermit groups hiding in the forest due to the impact of the God’s departure. But as time passed, the situation gradually changed.

”Some mystic sect groups, unable to sustain themselves independently, merged to form a larger ’Forest Sect,’ and their exploration of mystic rituals deepened and became more dangerous. Eventually, unsettling phenomena began appearing in the forests. Reports came from elves of seeing mind-distorting visions near ’hermit settlements,’ hearing whispers echoing in their minds, and even witnessing enormous creatures never seen in the real world step out from the forest.

”The first alarm for the Elven Royal Court was a report from a ranger of the time. A Ranger Hunter accidentally entered a mystic Druid’s base and saw thousands gathered for ceremonies, including residents from nearby villages and even travelers who went missing on the road. He witnessed those mystic Druids carving some enormous animal on the wall as idols and treating it as the new embodiment of the Nature God—after a long, unsettling ceremony, the Ranger Hunter saw the animal on the stone wall descend and start receiving the worship and prayers of the believers.”

Gawain held his breath, listened to every word, and finally couldn’t hold back his question: ”And then... did the Elven Royal Court destroy this mystic sect organization?”

”Yes, and this matter is little known,” Belsetia said calmly, ”There was no doubt it was a heretical sect, and the ’gods’ they communicated with and summoned were dangerous unknown entities. The Court couldn’t allow such a dangerous factor to continue developing, so the Empress at the time, my grandmother, issued an immediate order—the principal members of the mystic sect were all captured, while superficial followers scattered. After prolonged interrogations, the Court found that those core members were completely influenced by fanatical and twisted Nature God beliefs, even attempting to preach among the soldiers responsible for guarding. Therefore, they were executed, with none left.”

”And what was disconcerting was that after destroying this mystic sect organization, the Court sent several teams to search their former base, trying to find the whereabouts of that ’god,’ but only discovered broken and collapsed relief murals and lots of inexplicable ashes. The ’god’ disappeared, leaving nothing behind.

”Similar incidents occurred several times after that, from my grandmother to my father and then to my generation... Five centuries ago, I personally ordered the destruction of the last mystic sect group. Since then, no new mystic sects or ’gods’ have emerged, and the forest has returned to peace—but I still cannot be sure whether such a dangerous organization has truly been completely and permanently eradicated. They always seem to have the ability to reignite from the ashes and can always find new hiding places in the vast jungles.”

Belsetia’s narrative came to an end, she looked at Gawain with calm eyes, while Gawain’s mind was filled with tumultuous thoughts.

He processed the astonishing information the Silver Empress imparted, while unable to help but think of many things.

The first thing that came to his mind was the disappearance of those ’gods’ along with the extermination of mystic sect groups, those ’ideas born of collective worship and strict rituals’ dissolving like dreams made him recall an intelligence revealed by Amoen, the Giant Stag to him:

The gods first born were extremely weak, perhaps just large enough sticks and sharp spears could obliterate them...

And the second thing he thought of was that Amon ”faking death” for three thousand years was indeed a very wise decision—the long lifespan of elves indeed resulted in their ’persistence’ differing from humans. Even after countless centuries, the ’nostalgia’ for the Nature God surprisingly remains unabated, an astonishing fact indeed. If Amon had not chosen to fake death, perhaps He would indeed have been forced by those ’loyal servants’ to re-establish connection...

Besides, the intelligence brought by Queen Belsetia also corroborated many of the results of the defied Plan. Many of Gawain’s guesses about divine mechanisms were also confirmed, all of which were incredibly significant gains!

”It seems you still have many questions for me,” the Silver Empress smiled, ”Although this surpasses our agreed exchange, I am still willing to answer more.”

Gawain immediately asked, ”After dealing with so many of those mystic sects, does the Elven Royal Court still define those mystics simply as ’heterodoxies’?”

”Of course, they are undoubtedly heterodoxies,” the Silver Empress replied calmly, ”Please do not forget, I am the Supreme Priestess of Orthodox Druidism, so in my eyes, those mystics attempting to establish a ’new religion of the God of Nature’ must be heterodoxies...”

Gawain looked into her eyes: ”At the same time, you are still the Silver Empress, a ruler of an empire, so those sects must not only be heterodoxies but must be seen as such.”

The Silver Empress paused slightly, sighing, ”Uncle Gawain, after all these years, you still speak so bluntly.”

”I’ve been asleep for over seven hundred years, so not much time has passed for me—and even after seven hundred years, the world’s operating rules haven’t changed much,” Gawain said, shaking his head, ”What those mystic sects are doing is undoubtedly a huge threat, not only a threat to other Druid factions but also to the Empire’s order, I have deeply realized this. And for a theocratic Silver Empire, such a threat is even more lethal—the God of Nature has fallen, and the royal family, without divine support, certainly cannot stand by as a group of uncontrolled Druids truly create a new god...”

The Silver Empress frowned slightly, ”So, what they created really was a ’spiritual being’...”

”If my theoretical model is correct, it should be some kind of prototype, or an earlier psychological phantom created by collective thought currently in the process of transitioning into the real world, but as the number of followers is too small and the time is too short, this process has been greatly extended, which also gave you a chance to interrupt it,” Gawain nodded and said, then with some doubts, ”Did you all never realize those really were ’spiritual beings’? And didn’t conduct formal research?”

”There were guesses, but no one dared to conclude,” the Silver Empress said frankly, ”After encountering the first mystic sect, the Elven Royal Court vaguely realized the danger and sensitivity of this matter, so for thousands of years only royal family members knew the full information about those sects, and related research was conducted secretly under strict confidentiality. Outsiders only knew that the Court had sent troops several times to annihilate evil-cult groups in the forest, but no one knew what else we eliminated— even so, we only regarded those mysterious beings as similar to evil gods or ’Transcendent Spirits’, and relevant research was conducted on this basis. Moreover, since those ’spirits’ always dissipated quickly, our internal research made almost no progress, especially in recent centuries.”

Gawain was somewhat stunned, feeling regret because the Silver Empire was so close to the truth, they even encountered the terrifying truth behind the gods earlier than the Gondor Empire—but in the end, they hovered on the edge of the truth, never crossing that critical line of ”defied.” If they had been bolder, if they had not hidden these secrets so deeply and for so long, if they had participated in the human defied plan during Gondor’s time... would the world’s situation be different today?

But he quickly dismissed these meaningless assumptions, as these were impossible, even if time were turned back it would be difficult to realize—

The Silver Empire is a theocratic country, even if their original national religion is nominal, the unique identity of its rulers and the complex and intricate political structure determine that they could not have gone too far on this path, and even not considering this point... Under normal circumstances, who could imagine that the gods were born from ”thought tides” if they hadn’t had the chance to hear much intelligence directly from the gods?

The elves could only treat the ”spirits” conjured by those mystic sects as evil gods or unidentified ”Transcendent Spirits.”

Thinking of this, Gawain suddenly had a new question: ”I suddenly wonder, after all these years, the Elven Royal Court has had so many exchanges with those mystics, even though the research progress has been slow, have you ever considered... ’creating’ a god like them, or trying to communicate with the God of Nature? The Silver Empress and Silver Emperor’s identities are the Supreme Priestess of Orthodox Druidism, so in a sense, theocracy also influences your legitimacy. If you had a real god standing behind you...”

”We didn’t do that, the reason is quite simple,” the Silver Empress interrupted Gawain with a smile, shaking her head, ”After the gods left, we suddenly realized— without a god standing behind us, we could also be legitimate.”

”...I understand.” Gawain hesitated for a moment, then said in a deep voice.

Then he couldn’t help but laugh: ”Who would have thought, as the Supreme Priestess of the Druids, the Silver Empress actually is the one who least hopes for the God of Nature’s return.”

”You are wrong,” the Silver Empress shook her head, ”Actually, the ones who least hope for the God of Nature’s return are not me, but those mystic leaders who really summoned ’spiritual beings’, yet found those ’spiritual beings’ were not the God of Nature. They always displayed fanaticism and devotion, even calling the ’spiritual beings’ they summoned the new incarnation of the God of Nature Amon, but when we brought them to Amon’s royal temple for judgment, they eventually became filled with tension and fear—the sad distortion only needs to be seen once to be unforgettable for life.”

Gawain slowly chewed over her words, falling into contemplation in silence, while the Silver Empress sitting opposite him showed a smile, gently pushing the red tea in front of Gawain.

”Uncle Gawain, the tea is cold.”